The Princess Project
by RavenCurls
Summary: "Oh, what do we have here? 'Which Disney Princess are you? Take this quiz and find out.'" Fiyeraba one-shot.


**Finally something funny from me after more than a year. Special thanks to HC247 for sharing this prompt, providing consultation and (last but not least) for coming up with such a great title for this story!**

 **Disclaimer : I do not own Disney and the princesses. I don't even own stocks from Walt Disney Co.**

"Fiyero, stop it."

"Stop what?" A most innocent voice answered from behind.

"You're staring at me."

"Am not." She could almost hear the pout in his voice.

"You are. Staring at my back. Somewhere behind my shoulder blades. It's creepy. I can't concentrate when you're doing that. Just give me ten more minutes and I'll be done. This is the last essay to mark."

Fiyero chuckled. Elphaba took a deep breath, and he knew that she would be squinting her eyes as she tried to decipher the illegible handwriting on the paper before her. Elphaba had been working as Doctor Dillamond's teaching assistant for the past year, and part of her job included marking the essays of his students, grading those infuriating, nonsensical submissions that would sometimes send her ranting in the privacy of her room about their frivolous attitude towards their studies. He looked down at the novel in his hands, and grinned at the words printed on the paper.

"I'm not staring at you, Fae. I'm," he coughed to clear his throat and deepened his voice before he continued, "'gazing at her with his intense eyes that turned a darker shade of blue. His eyes traveled down from her blazing eyes to her lips, pausing there for a moment.'"

Elphaba spun around and looked at her boyfriend in horror. He was on her bed, a slim well-thumbed paperback in his hands. On the cover was a woman in an off-shoulder yellow gown, her head thrown back in ecstasy as a barrel chested man kissed her neck.

"I never know that you're interested in such stuff, Fae," Fiyero said as he flipped to the next page. He continued "'His mouth twitched, as if he was thinking of the things that he could do to those rose painted lips of her. She felt her breath quickened –'"

"Yero!" she was mortified.

Elphaba sprung from her seat onto the bed, her hand reaching out as she tried to grab the book, but Fiyero expertly tripped her with his long legs, and she crashed right onto him. He held the book just out of her reach as he wrapped his free arm around her waist and gave her a charming smile.

"Hello, Fae," he greeted in his best husky voice.

She shot him a dark look.

"You shouldn't have touched it. It's Galinda's."

"Not yours?" he raised a brow, and showed her the bookmark that was in the book. "But this is your bookmark."

"She borrowed it."

"You've read the book," he continued to tease her.

Her cheeks turned a darker shade of green.

"She read out loud before bedtime sometimes," Elphaba confessed as she scrambled out of the bed to the other side. She took a stack of old magazines from Galinda's study table and dropped it unceremoniously on his chest, ignoring the fake groan of pain that he gave. "Go read something else," she said as she made her back to her table. "I'll be done soon."

She eased onto her chair again, and heard his chuckle behind her as she picked up her pen.

"You know," Fiyero turned serious as he flipped through the magazines, trying to find something that could interest him. "I'm surprised that your father agreed to let you go with me to Vinkus for the holidays."

"That makes two of us," the green girl replied as she tried to write down some constructive suggestions on the essay. She planned to finish marking the last few assignments after dinner, and then she would be able to enjoy the summer without worrying about the essays waiting for her back in her room – Fiyero had forbidden her from bringing any work along for their holiday.

"You'll love the Vinkus - there're so many places that I want to show you. Kiamo Ko alone is enough to occupy you for days. And the Kells, the rivers, the Thousand Year Grasslands. Don't forget to bring your hiking boots. We're going to do lots of exploration, just you and me. It'll be amazing."

That was one of their favourite activities, walking around the campus or in town, fingers intertwined, as they explored hidden places that people usually did not know. There was surprisingly so much beauty to be found if they looked hard enough. The field of daffodils at the back of the administrative building, the nest of ducklings hidden amongst the tall grass next to the bridge that spanned the Suicide Canal, watching the sun rise from the rooftop of the library (and their first kiss as the sun turned his hair into a golden halo). Elphaba could not help but turned back.

"I'm looking forward to it," she admitted. Fiyero flashed a smile at her and she felt the familiar warm fuzzy feeling spread across her chest. She had never deemed herself as a romantic, love sick kind of girl. Oz, she had never imagined that she could be in a relationship with a boy, but here she was, somebody's girlfriend for more than two years, and not just anybody, but the crown prince of the Arjikis, the unattainable Fiyero Tiggular, the silly boy who made her smile whenever she thought of him.

Fiyero went back to the magazine, his attention caught by an article with a pink glittering title and a tiara placed precariously on top the first alphabet.

"Oh, what do we have here? 'Which Disney Princess are you?' You do remember that I'm a prince, don't you, Fae?"

Elphaba laughed as she put down her pen and looked over her shoulder, her marking completed. "I don't think you ever let anyone forget that, Your Royal Highness," she replied with a smirk.

"Do you know what does that mean? It means that you will be a princess when you marry me."

"If," she reminded him. "We may break up tomorrow, for all you know."

"Come on." Fiyero rolled his eyes. "We're not going to break up. Come here." He patted the space next to her and Elphaba plopped down on the bed ungraciously. Fiyero snuggled close to her. The Arjiki prince read from the magazine. "'What kind of princess do you think you are? Take this quiz and find out.'"

Elphaba scoffed.

Fiyero's stomach growled.

"Let's go for dinner," she suggested, but the prince's attention was no longer with her, his eyes fixed on the magazine.

"After this. I can't wait to find out," he said and took out a pencil from the nearest drawer.

His eyes moved across the first question as he spun the pencil between his fingers. "Wait," he paused as he remembered something, the hand with the pencil frozen in mid-air. "There are some princesses who don't have boyfriends." He scanned the pictures of the twelve princesses on the answer sheet, trying to recollect the stories that his ex-girlfriends had forced him to memorise last time, and marked a cross on those princesses without a boyfriend, before going backward to scratch out those answers that would lead to those few princesses.

The prince had such a serious look on his face that Elphaba could not help but smile. But the exams were finally over, and Fiyero was entitled to a little silliness after studying so hard.

"Are there any princesses with girlfriends?" he asked her.

Elphaba had to think for a while. "I don't think so. Why?"

Fiyero raised his eyebrows. "Why? Remember the rumours about you and Galinda? Gelphie?" He snorted. "I'm not a fan of Gelphie. I'm all for Fiyeraba. Or Elphiyero, if you prefer your name first."

He reached for her hand.

"Team Fiyeraba," he said softly, and watched as a shy smile touched her lips. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, and smiled when she blushed slightly.

"Alright, back to business. Question 1," the prince said as he adjusted himself to make himself more comfortable, their fingers still interlaced. "What do you prefer to do in a cold winter afternoon? A, curl up in front of the fireplace with a good book. B, spend the afternoon snuggling up to your prince. C, go out and ski. D, scrub your castle from top to bottom."

He looked at her hopefully from under his long eyelashes. "B?"

She looked back at him without a word and an eyebrow raised.

"B?" he hinted heavily, his fingers poised near to the second answer.

Her eyebrows raised further.

He let out an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. "Alright. A."

"Question 2, what pet would you like to have? A, small mammals like racoons. B, all strays are my pets. C, reptiles such as chameleons and lizards. D, animals that can talk and listen are not animals. They are Animals and they should be their own masters. That sounds like you, Fae." Fiyero put a tick next to the answer D.

"Question 3," he continued. "Where do you usually sing? A, when you are doing the household chores. B, when you are in the middle of the forest with lots of animals. C, when you are in the tower of your castle. D, you don't sing."

"D."

"But you sing!" He protested.

"I'm not a character in a musical, Yero. I don't break into a song when talking to Galinda. Neither do I dance and swing around the statue of Shiz's founding father." She gave him a pointed look.

"So you didn't break into a song after we held hands for the first time?" He teased her, and was rewarded with a glare.

He put the magazine down and shifted to face her "You have a beautiful voice, Fae," he told her, looking at her intently. "I love your voice, and I don't understand why you don't dare to sing when anyone else is around. I wish that you are not so shy about it."

She blushed. She was Elphaba, she had more flaws than Galinda had dresses, but it seemed that he could not see them; all he could see was how good she was, how perfect she was in his eyes. It used to scare her a little, how blind he was to her faults, and she used to fear that one day he would wake up and realise that he could not live with her flaws. It had taken Fiyero months before he could convince her that he did see her faults, but he still loved her - faults, freckles and all, just like the way she accepted him unconditionally. She could never get used to the compliments that he kept showering on her though.

"Fiyero…"

He noticed the discomfort in her eyes. "Alright, this quiz is nonsense. Let's do this another way."

He put the magazine aside and formed a rectangle with his fingers, framing her with it.

"Elphaba as Princess Anna. Feisty, beautiful and slightly stubborn. Just like you. Ready to meet the love of her life - The One."

The corners of her lips turned up slightly.

"Bull's eye?" Fiyero asked.

"Didn't The One turned out to be a power-crazed charmer who tried to kill her sister and usurp the throne?" Elphaba asked innocently.

Fiyero snorted.

"Alright, let's try another one. Elphaba as Snow White. Snow White has black hair, mind you," he wiggled a finger at her, and her smile widened. "Her evil stepmother glamoured herself an old lady and gave the beautiful girl a poisoned apple. The seven short munchkins, Boq's height –" Fiyero indicated with his hand a height somewhere two feet off the ground, definitely much shorter than Boq – " put her in a glass coffin and grieved. One fine day, a prince rode into the forest and woke her up with a kiss, and they lived happily ever after."

She leaned her back against the wall. "Don't malign my favourite fruit, Fiyero. There's no such thing as a poisoned apple. And I don't have a stepmother."

Her reply did not deter the Arjiki prince.

"I see that some improvisation is required," he said as he tucked his thumb and forefinger under his chin, seemingly deep in thought.

"What about this? Elphaba as Aurora. Cursed to die on her eighteenth birthday by the vengeful Madame Morrible who was jealous of her sorcery skills, but don't worry," he lifted a finger to stop Elphaba's protest. "Nanny turned out to be a fairy in disguise and changed the curse into a spell of dreamless sleep which would only be broken when Elphaba-Aurora's true love came along. The nanny's fairy friends cast a spell so that everyone in the great University of Shiz fell into a deep sleep with Elphaba-Aurora, and a thick forest of prickly vines sprung up and surrounded the campus. The prince, tipped off by a pair of Lovebirds, came on his magnificent white horse, and hacked his way through the forest with his mighty sword." He paused in his storytelling and pretended to pull out a sword from an imaginary sheath and slash at the air before him, making hacking and slashing sounds at all the wrong moments.

"The prince was scratched in a thousand places," Elphaba continued when Fiyero was done with his imaginary destruction. "His injuries turned gangrenous. I suppose he lost a limb or two." She chuckled at the disappointed look in his eyes. She was starting to enjoy this.

Fiyero huffed, and then another idea came to him. He pushed himself to his feet and bounced on the bed with a flourish before he offered a hand.

"Elphaba-rella, the girl forced to sleep by the fireplace by her stepsisters, Nessa and Galinda." Elphaba rose her eyebrows at the mention of her sister and best friend. Improvisation, he mouthed. "She was not allowed to go to the ball held in honour of the handsome Prince Fiyero, but her fairy godmother came and turned a pumpkin into a coach, and turned her hideocous Shiz uniform into a beautiful ball gown. She went to the ball and danced with the prince all night."

Fiyero leaped off the bed and pulled her into his arms, twirling her around the narrow spaces between the furniture, humming a song under his breath. She gave a yelp when they turned too fast and narrowly missed a corner, and he spun her once before he dipped her, grinning as she laughed nervously at how they managed to pull it off. He spun her into his arms again, but Elphaba somehow lost her footing and crashed onto him, sending the two of them crashing to the ground. They ended on a pile on the floor, laughing uncontrollably, and Fiyero pulled her to him.

"Two left feet, Yero," Elphaba said between laughs, unable to stop the giggles that bubbled from her throat, her hands checking him for injuries. "I got two left feet." She showed him two fingers. Fiyero shook his head as he tried to catch his breath and caught the two fingers that she had held up.

"I'm going to intensify your dance lessons from now on," he told her when their laughter finally died down. "I'm not going to fall on my bum in front of all the guests during the ball," he said, referring to the ball which would be held in Kiamo Ko over the summer in celebration of his coming-of-age, when he would officially be the Crown Prince of Vinkus.

"Maybe we should reconsider this dancing thing for the ball. I mean… you can dance with other girls; you can dance with Galinda. She's a great dancer. I don't think I can get the hang of it on time," Elphaba suggested.

Fiyero shook his head.

"Why would I want to dance with other girls when I have my girlfriend?" he asked as she rested her head on his shoulder. Fiyero kissed her on her forehead and wrapped an arm around her.

"You know," Fiyero said after a while. "If you really cannot dance, you can only be Mulan. Fiercely filial, and absolutely breath taking in a soldier's uniform." He gave Elphaba a mock salute. "Elphaba-Mulan masqueraded as a boy and joined the famous Arjiki warriors, led by the handsome Prince Fiyero. She was fearless, her skills only second to that of the Arjiki prince. One day, while out in the grasslands, she was attacked by a lion. The prince killed the lion with a single arrow released from more than a hundred paces away." Fiyero pretended to release an arrow from an imaginary bow. He touched her gently on her shoulder. "He tended to her wounds, and it was then that he realised that she was a girl…"

Elphaba shook her head. "That's very imaginative of you, Fiyero, but no."

"No?"

"No," she shook her head again. "But I can be Tiana," she offered. Fiyero beamed, thinking that she finally bought it. "And then you can be a frog," she tapped him on his nose with a grin.

His smile dropped.

But the ever cheerful prince's smile picked up again and he pulled her up from the floor.

"What about Pocha - no." He shook his head when he remembered that the ending of the story.

"Princess Jasmine then? With a handsome prince to show her a whole new world on a flying carpet?"

Elphaba smirked. "Fiyero, do you remember the first time you sat on my broom? How are you going to show me a whole new world when you did not even dare to open your eyes the moment your feet left the ground?"

Fiyero grimaced at the memory.

"Elphaba as Rapunzel then. Her lovely singing voice drew the prince to her tower and she let down her hair for him. See? You can't get away from it. A princess always sings."

Elphaba had secured her hair with just a clip, and Fiyero reached behind her head and remove the clip easily, pulling the clip towards him so that her waist-long hair fell over a shoulder. He curled a lock of hair with his finger.

"The prince climbed up the tower using her hair." His voice softened as he twirled her hair round and round his finger loosely, until he reached her cheek and he cupped her face.

"He soon reached the top of tower and the beauty of Rapunzel took his breath away."

"I think you got it wrong. She was green, and he was so scared that he let go of her hair and fell all the way down. Bad luck, princey. And Rapunzel's blonde." Elphaba reminded him.

"What about Belle?" he asked. "She loves reading, just like you. I don't mind being a beast for a while, because I know that your kiss will turn me back into the handsome prince that I really am."

Elphaba's eyes twinkled, and she folded her arms as he leaned close to her.

"What if I don't kiss you, like, forever?" Fiyero let out a breath of exasperation.

"The little mermaid?" he suggested. "Spunky, rebellious girl with a voice that could calm even the most ferocious and unreasonable sea creatures. She saved the prince when his ship sank in a fierce storm and gave up her lovely voice in exchange for the chance to be on land so that she could see him again. The little mermaid could no longer speak, but the prince could not help but be attracted to her." He took her hand and brushed his lips on the inside of her wrist. "Mesmerised by the girl who does not have a voice but who can speak with her eloquent eyes…"

Fiyero looked into her eyes. They were usually hidden behind her glasses, the lens performing more than one function – she always felt uncomfortable when casual acquaintances expressed surprise at how beautiful her eyes were. There was no denying that her rich brown eyes were windows to her soul. They were usually a medium brown when she was calm, but the colour could take on flecks of mica when she was happy, and changed to almost black when she was furious. She was not wearing her glasses now, and Fiyero could see that her irises had turned a darker shade of brown, as if even her eyes were blushing from the intensity of his gaze. He dipped his head and she tilted her face subconsciously to meet his lips.

Fiyero was no stranger to her lips. He had kissed her thousands of times, each kiss as amazing as their first. Elphaba was never affectionate in public, even after dating the prince who was constantly in the limelight. Their kisses in public were always initiated by him, brief, usually a peck on her cheek, because he knew how uncomfortable it made her. But in the privacy of their rooms, each kiss was a mixture of openness, vulnerability, shyness and more. He could taste her mood, her emotions and thoughts. It always left him wanting more. Elphaba wrapped an arm around his neck as he pulled her close, her fingers brushing against the fine hair there. He deepened his kiss slowly, savouring every moment. His hand drifted to her back, leaving a trail of tingles in its wake.

He leaned his forehead against her when they pulled apart, slightly breathless.

"You are my sun and moon and stars, Elphaba," he whispered, his thumb brushing against her cheek. She let out a soft chuckle at his cheesiness. "And of course the green apple of my eye," he added. She chuckled softly as she leaned close to him and rested her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. "You're a royal pain in my … you know…," she teased unsuccessfully, and was rewarded with a rumble of laughter.

Fiyero knew that he was so lucky to have her in his life. She was his anchor, his dreams, his life. His hand drifted to the pocket of his jacket. There, in the pocket, was a little present, a little surprise (though he hoped that it was not that much a surprise), a little box that he had collected from town yesterday and that could change his life, no, their lives forever. He wrapped his fingers around the little velvety box and took a deep breath.

"What about Princess Fae?" he whispered in her ear.

She chuckled. "You just don't give up, do you? So what is it about Princess Fae? A poisonous bowl of pasta? A curse from a one of your ex-girlfriends? Or is she so clumsy she falls on her face and breaks her nose?" She removed herself from his arms.

"I'm serious, Elphaba," he said, and something in his voice made her look up at him, in time to see him go down on one knee.

Elphaba might be denser than plutonium, but that was no mistaking what Fiyero meant with that gesture, sealed when he took out a tiny velvet box from his pocket.

She dropped her jaw.

"I thought you're hungry?" She squeaked when she finally found her voice.

He let out a breath.

"I got this yesterday. I'm supposed to restrain myself until the holidays, but I just _can't_ wait anymore."

He looked up at her.

"Elphaba, you know that I love you. Well, if you still don't, let me tell you now. I love you. I _love_ you. You're not my first girlfriend, but for sure you're going to be my last. You're incorrigible. You bullied me, raised your voice at me and forced me to study too much and too hard. But you're amazing, and you don't know how amazing. You took care of me when I was sick, making that terrible Munchkin soup and forcing it down my throat." Elphaba smiled a little at that. "And you made me think, _really_ think. You made me realise what is really important in life. You melted me with just your smile. And when you're with me, the day seems a bit brighter, the hurdles seem a little bit less scary. Rainy days are no longer wet and gloomy because I get to huddle under an umbrella with you. When the sun is out and I am with you, I feel like jumping on a bench and breaking into a song."

He took a breath. "I've been wanting to do this for months now… almost a year now, but I know what you'd say. You'd say that we are still studying and we're too young, and Oz, you keep saying that we'll break up tomorrow, but we have been through 2 years of tomorrows without breaking up, 2 years where we just get closer and our love just grow stronger. I know we're not compatible, we're as different as the sun and moon, but we complement each other. And now that the finals are over and your father has given his blessings - "

"My father… what?" She thought that her jaw could not drop any further, but it did … oh well, it did drop a little further.

Fiyero had the cheek to look embarrassed at that point.

"Remember when I offered to mail your letter for you? I wrote an additional letter to your father asking him for your hand in marriage. I invited him and Nessa to Kiamo Ko for the ball and told him that I'd propose to you then. It was all planned. It would take place after our first dance. The ring will be there." He opened the box and took out the ring. It was a simple ring, with five Arjiki blue diamonds in a row. "Glinda found out your ring size. That was why she went through that mad period when she made you try on all her rings and went shopping for rings in town; I just don't want to get the wrong size."

He held her hand.

"You love me, don't you?" Elphaba was too stunned to speak, but he could see it in her eyes and the way she pursed her lips.

"I just can't bear the thought of us being separated once summer is over. I don't want to just see you once every 2 months for just a weekend. I want to wake up next to you every morning, make sweet love to you at night". She blushed. "I want to tell you all about my day before we go to bed, talk about everything, even quarrel sometimes." The corner of her mouth twitched. "I just – "

"Wait…" He pulled back slightly. "I can't… she'll kill me."

Her eyes widened at that sentence. "Do you have a wife back in Vinkus?"

"Of course not," he blurted. "It's Galinda. She made me promised that I'll only do it during my ball so that she can witness it. It's her condition for helping me find out your ring size. She'll kill me for sure if she found out I have already proposed to you."

Elphaba could not help but laugh at the horror in his eyes. Galinda might be petite and sweet, but they all knew that the tiny Gillikinese was not one to be messed with.

"So…" she looked at him slyly. "Does that mean that I cannot wear the ring until you officially propose to me during the holidays?"

It took the Arjiki prince a few moments before he realised what she meant.

"Is that a yes?" His face lit up as he jumped up and pulled her into his arms.

"Well," Elphaba pretended to consider as she drummed her fingers against his chest, a mischievous grin on her face. "I guess it means that I still have time to change my mind before the ball."

Fiyero laughed at her cheekiness as his thumb grazed her cheek, a wide smile splitting his face.

"I'll make sure you'll never change your mind, Mrs soon-to-be Fiyero Tiggular," he said and he kissed his fiancée for the first time.


End file.
